But they bloom quickly and briefly, not long after the snow melts, producing these spectacular bright red flowers:

The snowflower is the only representative of its genus, and is unusual due to being both a flowering plant and a saprophyte. (Yes, botanists will tell you to use the more accurate but unwieldy term 'myco-heterotroph'.) What that means is that snowflowers get no energy through photosynthesis, like most plants do: they're actually parasites…